French battery manufacturer and designer Saft has been contracted to supply a 1MW/3MWh lithium-ion storage system at an educational facility in California, aimed at mitigating the impact of variable solar generation.

The Australian Energy Storage Council, a new industry representative body has been launched for energy storage in Australia, backed and co-founded by the Australian Solar Council.

Sunworks, the installation arm of PV manufacturing start-up, Solar3D, has begun offering battery storage systems in its solar power projects.

Australian solar and energy storage company ZEN Energy has received a AUS$200,000 (US$184,000) grant from local government toward the development and commercialisation of its energy storage technologies.

Tesla’s lithium-ion ‘Gigafactory’ will be built in Nevada, after company officials including chief executive officer Elon Musk appeared alongside the US state’s governor at a press conference held yesterday afternoon.

Researchers from Technische Universität München (TUM) in Germany working with lithium-ion batteries claim to have observed lithium plating taking place at close quarters while batteries are in use, gaining insights into the phenomenon in the process.

A new report funded by the fuel cell industry claims that over five million fuel cell smart power units could be installed in the UK by 2030, equivalent to 5GW of new generation, driving a “revolution” in distributed energy.

PV Tech Storage went to Kent, England, to see the installation of a lithium-ion battery storage system coupled with PV at a uniquely designed Passivhaus.

TÜV SÜD has developed a certificate for renewable energy storage systems (RESS), which the testing house claims will “provide reliable information on the safety, performance and service life of stationary energy storage systems”.

SunPower CEO Tom Werner says that the idea of solar power users combining their systems with battery storage to become fully independent of the grid is “naïve”, echoing the views of one of SolarCity’s founders.